> Features > Pg 2 Feature Stories > Marine adjusts to life after deployment
|
Marine adjusts to life after deployment
|
| |
|
Corporal Craig Washington embraces his daughter after returning from Iraq. Reminder photo by Natasha C lark
|
By Sarah M. Corigliano
Special to The Reminder
SPRINGFIELD Just two weeks after returning home from his tour of duty in Fallujah, Iraq as part of the 1/25 Marines, Corporal Craig Washington is back in his Springfield home. The only signs of his recent service can be seen in his well-worn combat boots resting on the front porch, photos of Fallujah which he recently had developed, and the memories he carries with him and is willing to share with those who will listen.
Washington talks about improvements and setbacks experienced by U.S. troops and the Iraqi people, and he can list all the family milestones he missed while away serving his country, including his five-year-old daughter Zarria Shider-Washington's preschool graduation. He also recounts the names, exact dates and reasons four of his company-mates were killed in action.
"It doesn't bother me that much [to talk about the war]," he said.
After so many months under constant sniper threat, Washington has a hard time standing or sitting still, especially outside. Loud noises startle him, he said, and his aggression level is out of whack.
For example, when he went to church with his family last weekend he accidentally took a nearby resident's parking spot. When he realized his error, he said he went to move the car, but the resident became hostile and started yelling.
"Normally, I'd be like 'OK. Whatever,'" he said. But that day, he said he had to walk away because his reaction was unpredictable and he did not want to say or do anything to over-react to the situation.
As a reservist, Washington usually works full-time in the civilian world for the state of Connecticut as a prison guard at a minimum security facility and attends the requisite "drills" with the Marine Corps Reserves. When activated, his training became full time and aggression was the skill he honed to keep himself alive and fight the insurgents in Iraq. After so many months of having to "bring it right up," he said it's hard to bring that aggression level right back down.
But sleeping is good.
"It's easy falling asleep and not worrying about being shot at," he said, adding that he can't seem to sleep past 2 or 3 a.m. yet. He also said his fianc e, Rayhana Harvey, noticed his hearing is slightly diminished.
Now that he is back in the civilian world, Washington said he has 90 days before he can return to work, as he is still considered on active duty. He plans to return to the state of Connecticut, he said, and will use the current time off to continue re-adjusting to life back home.
"I have to learn how to relax again," he explained.
He feels Charlie Company was able to accomplish some positive things in its time in Fallujah, and said the city experienced some significant changes and improvements. However, he said it's up to the Iraqi people to see the transition through to success.
At the beginning of April, he said the action was less intense than in October when he left.
"When we were engaged [with the enemy], we usually came back laughing," Washington recounted. That was, if everyone was unscathed after the firefight. He said Marines had to practice restraint with their weapons and level of hostility, even though insurgents increased their attacks and conducted them in residential areas something Charlie Company did not experience at the beginning of its tour.
He said the training he received at Mojave Viper was helpful, but that the changing situation in theater made it necessary for the Marines to adapt to the current conditions in Fallujah. He said the training was probably more appropriate for the battalion the 1/25 replaced in April.
"Insurgents are starting to attack the Iraqi police and army now," he said. "Before we left, it didn't really matter if there were women or children they were planting IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] in residential neighborhoods. That never happened before people were getting fed up."
A couple of positive changes Washington witnessed were the opening of a city council-type forum for Fallujah residents to address their concerns with the Marines in the city, and a phone and e-mail hotline for residents to call in accounts of insurgent activity directly to the Marines there. Washington said people were using this service before he left to come home.
While Charlie Company lost four of its brothers, Washington said if it had not been for the Company's First Sergeant, Ben Grainger, there would have been many more injuries.
"We couldn't do any better," he said. He added that the team of Grainger and Major Vaughn Ward kept the Marines' morale up and made them feel confident in their leadership.
Washington also had to lead a team of Marines while in Iraq. As a fire team leader, his job was to lead younger, less experienced men and ensure they were ready for combat at many levels from having plenty of water to making sure their weapons were clean and they had the proper personal protection equipment on them before going out into the city, often times on foot. On the street Washington made sure they kept moving and that they were getting and providing cover. During Charlie Company's second week there his buddy, Riccio, got hit with sniper fire that ricocheted from the wheel-well of a humvee and went through his leg. Washington dragged him to safety so that the sniper could not hit him again. For this action he was given the Commandant's coin from the Commandant himself as he came through the area, and was shortly promoted from Lance Corporal to Corporal.
Some of Washington's snapshots are of humvees that have been hit by mortar fire or other weapons (the vehicles have since been repaired and/or improved, he said). He said the CMOC, which was Charlie Company's home base, also was attacked by mortar fire, but that the four mortars that made it to the building were duds.
One of the hardest things about coming home, he said, is "trying to fit back into everybody else's routine."
He said the classes he had with a Marine chaplain taught him to be patient in this transition period and not to take it personally, for example, that his daughter's excitement at his return home has worn off and she does not care to spend as much time with him. He also has to be patient with himself when he can't remember everything he thought he would never forget, like the fact that his daughter is allergic to pineapples and that she has asthma. He is also finding that his loved ones need to be patient with him. Conversations they had with him over the phone during his deployment, sometimes three or four times a week, might not be remembered in detail or at all.
Home cooked meals and his favorite Chinese take out are helping to ease the transition back to life the way it was before going to war.
In addition to "just practicing being lazy and trying to clear my head," Washington was prepared last week to reunite with Charlie Company and other Marines at the Marine Corps League Ball in Plainville, Connecticut, where they are based. The annual Marine Corps Ball celebrates the birthday of the Corps.
Corporal Craig Washington joined the Marine Corps Reserves in January 2003 and his service will be complete in January 2011. He is aware that the U.S. government has voiced its intentions to keep using reserve forces in the war in Iraq, and he is unsure if he will sign on for additional service when the time comes.
"It's not every day you can do something like that, [but] being away from home sucked," he said.
|
|
|
|
> Features > Pg 2 Feature Stories > Marine adjusts to life after deployment
|
|
